Friday, October 31, 2008

The Mirror and Mr X milk the Brand saga

The two presenters may have contributed to the "coarsening and degrading of society", but coming from certain tabloids it sounds a bit rich

The next time someone tells you we no longer live in a male-dominated society, feel free to throw a dirty napkin at them. You have our official blessing. Tabloid reactions to the whole Brand & Ross affair have proved how sexism is firmly ingrained in our two-faced society.

Readers' forums on the Daily Mail website are currently hosting a remarkable collection of men expressing faux outrage at "all the publicity" that "the slut" (Sachs' grandaughter) is now allegedly enjoying off the back of the Radio2 saga.

Then there's the Brand apologists, those who lecture us all on the importance of developing a "sense of humour" (and the worrying matter is they'd probably repeat the same if they saw their favourite playground bully pranking the shit out of a 'school nerd'. You see, if you don't join in and laugh along you're not part of the in-crowd), but that was expected.

But the most disturbing, of course, are the tabloids themselves, oozing oily hypocrisy from all pores. The Mirror is the latest to join in. How can the normally sound Paul Routledge write that the presenters' behaviour "coarsens society and degrades people" on the very same day his paper exposes Georgina Baille's private life in a way that not even Brand did? The Mirror's 'EXCLUSIVE' is just the epitomy of Britain at its worst.

They got this bloke, Mr X, tipping them off on her job as an escort, which she carries out using only her pseudonym. But in a second, her personal life became less worthy than a pile of dung. As they trampled all over it, the Mirror adopted a mixture of high horse posturing and smug amusement wrapped up in phony disdain. "Cor...look! This is the sleazy slut that stirred all this shit", appears to be the tone of their 'EXCLUSIVE', 'risque' photos and all ("Granddaughter in Jonathan Ross - Russell Brand prank call a £110 per hour dominatrix").

And what about the fact that Mr X was the one who paid £110 to be spanked and called names? He may be a respectable family man, who knows, but to the public he'll remain Mr X, whereas Sachs' grandaughter is now the one having her real name and face paraded to the public guillotine, even though, lest we forget, she never asked for it.

So the Mirror's story has to count as the latest by-product of Russell Brand's 'hilarious' prank. It's not just that it was unfunny or inappropriate, it's its far-reaching consequences that Ross & Brand completely failed to take into account. The girl never asked to be branded as a slut on every tabloid front page in the country.